In April 2021, 12 students from three local high schools began a new program to give youth hands-on experiences as environmental scientists. The Friends of the Wagner Ranch Nature Area (FWRNA), also known as FONA, received grants and donations in 2020 to launch the Citizen Scientists program.
During the first year, students conducted experiments using wildlife camera traps to find out what animals were living in the Nature Area. Students helped position cameras in five habitats (meadow, riparian, woodland, brush and pond). They chose three kinds of bait to lure mammals, reptiles and birds near the cameras (hog chow, dog chow and blueberries).
The students met one weekend afternoon a month to refill the bait and check the cameras for wild visitors, including bobcats. Walking along the trails of the Nature Area, students found tracks, mole runs and small furry pellets full of bones spit out by owls.
This was all evidence of animals living in the area.
Amphibian coverboards had been placed throughout the area by a Girl Scout for her Gold Award, to give salamanders a cool moist place to hide from predators. The students photographed lizards, worms and salamanders living under the coverboards.
By the end of the year, students had documented 44 species living in the Nature Area. The results of their studies were published as a Shutterfly book “Citizen Environmentalists: Research Projects in the Orinda Nature Area.” The book included their data, graphs, conclusions and photos of them working in the beautiful Wagner Ranch Nature Area.
In 2024, FONA got another small grant from the North American Association of Environmental Educators. Eleven students from four local schools began their investigations in the Nature Area Garden.
The Citizen Science projects were interrupted in April, halfway through the program when the Orinda Unified School District said the greenhouse was unsafe for students to be near, even though students did not use the space.
Sadly, students were unable to complete their experiments, so FONA moved the program to Brad McCullough’s property. McCullough, FONA’s treasurer, generously helped students create new experimental plots.
On the last day of the Citizen Scientists program at McCullough’s, students celebrated over lunch and talked about the unexpected events that challenged them as they modified their hypotheses and new test sites.
Program leaders also spoke about Steve Gentry, “The Orinda Bee Man” who started FONA. In 2020, Gentry left a legacy in his will for FONA to establish a Citizen Science program for youth.
For more information, go to the Friends of the Nature Area Facebook page at bit.ly/4kjDn6c.
Citizen Scientists use Orinda’s Nature Area as springboard to learning
